Method of spool-setting



Oct. 20, 1964 Filed May 10, 1962 s. F. TOWNSEND 3,153,274

METHOD OF SPOOL-SETTING 4 Sheets-Sheet 1 Fig.1.

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19M FLETCHER EWNSEND diwiiwx m A 77081145 KS Oct. 20, 1964 s.,F.TOWNSEND 3,

' METHOD OF SPOOL-SETTING Filed May 10, 1962 i 4 Sheets-Sheet 2 UNIT 48UNIT47 UNIT 2 UNIT I awn/Tog Sn: it ETCH Efi o uugsuj Oct. 20, 1964 s.F- TOWNSEND 3,153,274

METHOD OF SPO0L-SETTING Filed May 10, 1962 4 Sheets-Sheet 3 Fig.5.

nvvew 7'02 3M1 FLETCJ-IEQ FQNSEN] JZMJJJM Oct. 20; 1964 Filed May 10,1962 S. F. TOWNSEND METHOD OF SPOOL-SETTING -4 Sheets-Sheet 4 m l s-wrogSAM T an 'lwuse/vj United States Patent 3,153,274 METHOD OFSPOOL-SETTING Sam F. Townsend, Halifax, England, assignor to JohnCrossley and Sons Limited, Halifax, England, a company of Great BritainFiled May 10, 1962, Ser. No. 193,723 Claims priority, application GreatBritain, May 16, 1961, 17 ,803/ 61 14 Claims. (Cl. 28-725) The presentinvention relates to improvements in or relating to spool setting.

The present practice in setting-up the spools which are very widelyemployed in the weaving of Axminster carpets is for a creel to be loadedwith a plurality of bobbins each containing yarn of one of the desiredcolours and the yarn from all of the bobbins is drawn up through a sleyand secured to and wound upon a spool. It is essential, of course, tomaintain the colour sequence which is determined for the operativessetting-up the spools by a pattern drawn on squared paper, onehorizontal line of the squares thereon representing one transverse rowin the finished carpet. When one spool has been set-up, the threads ofyarn are gripped in a clamp and guard near to the spool itself in orderto ensure that the correct colour sequence is not lost or destroyed, thesaid threads are cut or broken and the free ends are thereafter threadedthrough a tube frame whereupon the comb is removed.

Ignoring the fact that, in practice and for obvious reasons, more thanone spool is wound with yarn in any one colour sequence, upon completionof these tasks the operatives remove the filled spool and place an emptyspool on the winding mechanism and then, after adjusting a cursor downone line to pick up the next horizontal line of squares on the pattern,the colour sequence of the yarn threads employed when setting up thelast spool is checked thread by thread against the colour sequence ofthe corresponding squares on the pattern. Where the colour of theexisting yarn thread is the same as that indicated in the square of thepattern, the free end of the thread may be fastened to the spoolpreparatory to winding, but, where a difference is noted between thecolour of a thread and the corresponding square on the pattern, thethread has to be taken back to and rewound on the bobbin, the bobbin isremoved from the creel and .is replaced by one holding yarn of therequired colour and the free end of the yarn on the bobbin is broughtthrough the sley up to the spool and secured thereto. This operation isrepeated across, for example, the 27" width of the spool, there beingseven threads to the inch making a total of 189 threads to the spool.When the colour sequence has been thus checked, the winding mechanism isstarted and, for example, 32 feet of yarn are wound on to the spool.

It is the principal object of the present invention to speed-up thisspool-setting operation and to eliminate as much as possible of themanual labour which is employed.

Accordingly, the present invention consists in a method of spool-settingwhich includes the steps of noting the colour sequence in a horizontalline of a pattern, selecting from a plurality of elemental bobbins atleast one bobbin containing thread of a colour corresponding to that ofa square of the pattern and assembling a plurality of such selectedbobbins side by side in the same colour sequence as that noted upon thepattern in order to form a spool. The selection of a bobbin may beperformed manually or with the aid of mechanical, electrical orso-called electronic devices and/or circuitry. It may be desirable toselect two or more bobbins at the same time.

Further, the present invention consists in a method of spool-settingwhich includes the steps of controlling by Patented Oct. 20, 1964- meansof a record the operation of selection mechanism which is operable toselect at least one elemental bobbin containing thread of a particularcolour from a plurality of such bobbins, selecting a plurality of suchbobbins by repeated operation of said selection mechanism under thecontrol of said record, and assembling said plurality of selectedbobbins in a colour sequence which is predetermined by said record inorder to form a spool. The record may take several forms, for example, apunched or magnetic tape or a punched card, the colour of each of thethreads to be employed in one row or in more than one row or in each rowof a repeat of a carpet design being recorded on said record in codedform. Preferably, of course, the coded form of the recording of saidthread colours in any one row will reproduce the colour sequence(reading from left to right or vice versa) to be found in that row. Itmay also be desirable to select two or more bobbins at the same time.

Further, the present invention consists in a method of spool settingwhich includes the steps of noting the colour sequence in a horizontalline of a pattern, operating a selection mechanism to effect theselection from a plurality of elemental bobbins of at least one bobbincontaining thread of a colour to be employed in a carpet rowcorresponding to said pattern line, repeating the oper ation of saidselection mechanism a predetermined number of times to select aplurality of elemental bobbins, and assembling said plurality ofselected bobbins in a colour sequence identical with that in saidpattern line in order to form a spool. The selection mechanism may takeanyform suitable for manual operation and may, for example, include amanually operable keyboard or a plurality of depressible buttons or aplurality of switches, actuation of a key, button or switch causing,directly or indirectly, the selection of one elemental bobbin from alocation in which is stored a plurality of bobbins which, in total,contains threads of at least all the colours which are to be employed inthe making of a particular carpet. It may also be desirable to selecttwo or more bobbins at the same itme.

Further, the present invention consists in a method of spool-settingwhich includes the selection by a selection mechanism of an elementalbobbin from a plurality of elemental bobbins, the feeding by feedingmechanism of a selected bobbin to an assembly location, and assembling aplurality of selected bobbins side by side in order to form a spool.Each elemental bobbin contains thread of one particular colour but thenumber of colours employed .in the making of an Axminster carpet may behundreds.

The operation of the selection mechanism to pick out a bobbin or morethan one bobbin containing yarn of the desired colour may cause theselected bobbin or bobbins to move into a stationary feeding mechanism(for example, one or a series of sloping guides) or may cause theselected bobbin to become engaged by or to drop onto a positive (driven)feeding mechanism. Further, the operation of one control (key, button orswitch) may cause operation of both the selection mechanism and thefeeding mechanism, or separate controls may be provided for the separatemechanisms.

In accordance with any aspect of the invention, a device or devices maybe incorporated at the location of assembly to assist the assembly ofthe several bobbins.

In order to carry any aspect of the present invention into effect, theyarn is preferably wound in the form of .a disc upon an annular formerwhich may be, for example, of metal, wood or natural and/ or syntheticresin material, the disc being otherwise formed solely from the yarnitself. The discs when fully wound upon precision .winding machines arepreferably but by no means exclusively of 3" diameter and in axialwidth, the former having a 1" bore through which means may be insertedwhich will ensure that all the discs have a common or substantiallycommon axis of rotation. Apart from the former, therefore, the soleconstituent of the disc is the yarn itself and even the former may beomitted. The discs (with or without the formers) are referred to throughthis specification and in the claims appended hereto as elementalbobbins.

Again, the elemental bobbins may take the form of the so-called brassbobbins which are employed in the lace-making industry.

It will be appreciated from what has been said above and from thespecific description of the invention below that the basic concept ofthe present invention is to dispense with the labour-consuming andtime-consuming process of spool-setting as now pnactised and to replacethis process with a more economical method which consists essentially inthe assembly side by side of elemental bobbins in a desired coloursequence by any means whatsoever (that is, entirely automatically,semi-automatically or even manually). The form which the elemencalbobbins take is immaterial; the only limitations as to their form willbe imposed by the desired dimension of the spool when set-up andconvenience in handling said elemental bobbins.

The present invention will now be more particularly described withreference to the acompanying drawings, in which:

FIGURES 1 and 2 are block diagrams illustrating the principle underlyingtwo embodiments of the present invention;

FIGURE 3 illustrates diagrammatically a first practical realisation ofthe embodiment of FIGURE 2, including a rotatable wheel (broken away), achute and a spoolforming station;

FIGURES 4, and 6 illustrate diagrammatically second practicalrealisation of the embodiment of FIGURE 2, FIGURE 4 being a frontelevation of an installation for winding, storing, selecting andtransporting a plurality of elemental bobbins to a spool-forming stationwhere spools of bobbins are set, FIGURE 5 being an end elevation of saidinstallation and FIGURE 6 being a section along the line VI-VI on FIGURE5; and

FIGURE 7 illustrates a perspective view of one form of elemental bobbinemployed in carrying the present invention into effect.

Referring firstly to FIGURES 1 and 2 of the drawings, the underlyingprinciple of the present invention is illustrated.

In FIGURE 1, a yarn-winding station 10, a store 11 and a spool-formingstation 12 constitute the essential integers of the invention. Theyarn-winding station 10 may consist of one or more precision windingmachines, each machine being operable to wind yarn of a particularcolour into an elemental bobbin of the form described above andillustrated in FIGURE 7. In a rudimentary embodiment of the invention,the output of the station 10 may be allowed to drop from the machineinto a container which, when filled, is transported to the store 11. Insaid rudimentary embodiment the store 11 may consist of a plurality ofcompartments (arranged, for example, in vertical columns and horizontalrows around the walls of a room in the manner of bookshelves), eachsingle compartment being allotted to and containing elemental bobbinseach of which consists of yarn of single particular colour. Thespool-forming station 12 may consist, in said rudimentary embodiment, ofa movable wheeled trolley. Accordingly, in operation, a single pair ofoperatives could deal with the stocking of the store 11 and theformation of spools. One operative could, for example, put away in theproper compartments the output of, say, six precision winding machines.The other operative could push a wheeled trolley around the store 11,said wheeled trolley carrying a pattern drawn on the usual squared paperand at least one rack or holder. The second operative reading the lineof squares immediately above the cursor from, for example, left toright, would note the colour sequence in said line of coloured squaresand would push the trolley around picking one or more elemental bobbinsof the required colours. from the relevant compartments and placing saidbobbins in the rack or holder, making certain that the colour sequencefrom left to right in that line on the pattern is reproduced exactly bythe colour sequence from left to right of the plurality of elementalbobbins lodged in the rack or holder. When the whole line of the patternhas been reproduced in this manner, a shaft or rod is inserted throughthe aligned central apertures in the elemental bobbins to form a spool.It will be appreciated that, once the operative in charge ofspool-forming has become familiar with the positions of the compartmentscontaining the various colours of yarn, even this manual embodiment ofthe invention (which is, therefore, comparatively slow) will enable afar greater output of set-up spools to be achieved that is possible withthe present system. At present, it is the practice in Great Britain toemploy two girls on each spool-winding machine and these two girls areable to work at the approximate rate of setting-up and winding-otf sixspools per hour, assuming that only a single spool is wound-off for eachof six different spool-setting operations. We estimate that, evenemploying the relatively slow manual procedure described above withreference to FIGURE 1, it should be possible easily to double thisworking rate, thereby achieving with two operatives the production of atleast twelve set-up spools per hour. The effect of this will be that fora production of the same size as at present from the spool-settingsection the number of operatives could be halved, or that with the samenumber of operatives production could be doubled.

It will be obvious that more mechanised methods of transportation ofwound elemental bobbins from the station 10 to the store 11 can beprovided.

Referring to FIGURE 2, a yarn-winding station 20, a store 21, bobbinselection mechanism 22 forming a part of said store and a spool-formingstation 23 constitute the essential integers of a more automatedinstallation for carrying the present invention into effect. The outputof one or of a battery of precision winding machines is fed into ortransported to the store 21, the bobbins of each particular colour ofyarn being stored in one compartment or location. The operation of thebobbin selection mechanism by the operative ensures the selection fromthe store 21 of a bobbin containing yarn of a particular colour. Theselection mechanism may be of any type whatsoever.

One embodiment of the invention which makes use of a keyboard operatedmanually by a spool-setter is illustrated in FIGURE 3, which is more orless schematic and is not intended to illustrate all the details of themechanism since the provision of the missing details would not presentany difliculty to a competent engineer.

A wheel 30 is secured at its central hub to a shaft 31 which isrotatable by a motive power unit which is not illustrated. A pluralityof shafts or spindles 32 depends from one face of the wheel 30, eachshaft 32 being provided with releasable catches 33 which retainelemental bobbins 34 on the shaft 32 until said catches are released.The wheel, in rotating, passes over a spool-forming station 35 which, ina simple form, may consist of a chute 36 and a rack or holder 37connected to a keyboard 38 in the same manner as the movable carriage ofa typewriter is connected to the depressible keys of the typewriter.Elemental bobbins are stored on the shafts or spindles 32 by pushingsaid bobbins upwardly to collapse the catches 33.

Selection of at least one elemental bobbin from a spindle 32, regardlessof that spindles location with respect to the spool-forming station 35,is initiated and effected by depression of the key in the keyboard 38which represents the colour both of one particular square of the squaredpattern from which the machine operator is working and of the yarn inthe elemental bobbin or bobbins selected. Depression of the key will (bymeans, for

example, of relays and a rotary line switch of the type in widespreaduse in automatic telephone installations) start the motive power unitwhich will rotate the wheel until the spindle 32 holding bobbins of yarnof the selected colour is disposed above the station 35, will thereuponprevent further rotation of the wheel 36 and will cause the catches 33to be released (for example, by means of an operating solenoid locatedwithin the spindle 32) to. allow a single bobbin 34 to drop off thespindle 32 into and down the chute 36 to the rack or holder 37. Whensaid rack or holder -37, moving, for example, one space. to the left assoon as a key is depressed, has been filled with elemental bobbins 34 ina colour sequence identical with that in a line of squares in thesquared pattern, a shaft is caused to extend through the aligned centralapertures of the assembled bobbins to form a spool.

Referring now to FIGURES 4, 5 and 6 there is illustrated a continuouslyoperating installation which winds yarn into elemental bobbins, storesthe elemental bobbins, seelctively releases said bobbins under thecontrol of bobbin release mechanism operated by punched tape, transportsselected bobbins in the required colour sequence to a spool-formingstation and sets a plurality of spools one spool at a time.

Thus, the installation consists of an endless conveyor belt 60intermittently driven for movement in the direction of the arrow 61beneath a battery of stored elemental bobbins. The installationillustrated by way of example only consists of forty-eight units, eachunit including a precision Winding machine 62 (FIGURE 5) capable ofwinding, for example, five elemental bobbins per mintute, each bobbinwhen completed being dotted from the machine winding head 63 on a chute64 leading to a reciprocating loading pad 65. Said pad 65 is movedupwardly (for example, by a cam) to cause the elemental bobbin 66thereon to move past collapsible catches 67 on a spindle 68, saidcatches 67 thereafter retaining the bobbin 66 on the spindle 68 untilthe catches 67 are collapsed again by, for example, an electricallyoperated solenoid located within the spindle 68. Associated with each ofthe forty-eight units (of which only units 1, 2, 47 and 48 are drawn inFIGURE 4) are four spindles 68, 69, 70, 71 which depend from a turret 72having an indexing mechanism indicated generally at 73.

Adjacent that end of the conveyor belt 60 towards which the upper lapthereof is travelling there is disposed a collection device 74 whichforms a part of the spoolforming station. Also forming a part of saidstation is a replaceable set of four shafts 75, 76, 77, 78 mounted upona base 79 connected by connecting pins 89 to an indexing device 81.

The operation of the mechanism so far described with reference toFIGURES 4 to 6 is as follows:

Each precision winding machine 62 winds and dolfs elemental bobbins 66and the bobbins are stored on the spindle 68. When the spindle 68 isfull, the turret 72. is rotated (except as hereinafter mentioned) by theindexing mechanism 73 to move the empty spindle 71 (FIGURES 5 and 6)into the position in which it is vertically above and axially alignedwith the pad .65.

It will be assumed that each of the forty-eight units is to be employedin the setting of spools to make an AX- minster carpet, each unitdealing with yarn of a dilferent colour from that of the yarn dealt withby the remaining units. The conveyor belt 60 is started and, readingfrom left to right along the first line of the squared patternrepresenting the repeat of the design, elemental bobbins 66 are releasedfrom those spindles of the spindles 68, 69, 70, 71 in each unit whichoverhang the conveyor belt. Bobbins 66 are selected in this manner inthe same colour sequence as the adjacent squares in the squared pattern,and the conveyor belt 60 transports the bobbins 66 which fall thereon tothe spool-forming station so that said bobbins arrive at the collectiondevice 74 in the same order as that in which they were selected. Thecollection device 74 picks each bobbin be the conveyor belt 60 and 6.ensures that it is centred exactly in relation to that one of the shaft75, 76, 77, '78 which is-being loaded.

When any one shaft is filled, the indexing device 81 is operated by anoperator to present an empty shaft for loading. A filled shaftconstitutes, of course, a set spool.

When the spindle, in any unit, from which elemental bobbins 66 have beenallowed to drop on the conveyor belt 60 is empty, the indexing mechanism73 associated with the turret 72 of that unit is operated to rotate theturret to present an empty spindle to the winding machine 6?. and toposition a full spindle over the conveyor. The exception referred to inthe third preceding paragraph in relation to rotation of the turret 72when the winding machine has filled a spindle is that the turret 72 willnot be so rotated until the spindle which is being emptied is completelyempty. Therefore, it will be necessary to'provide the installation withmeans of stopping the winding machine when the spindle just filled isnot immediately moved and replaced by an empty spindle.

The selective release of elemental bobbins 66 may be effected in avariety of ways. Thus, for example, an operator can sit at a controlconsole opposite the spoolforming station with a squared pattern andoperate switches in a sequence dictated by the coloured squares of thepattern. The operator can if necessary ensure by observation along that,when an elemental bobbin from unit 48 is wanted, followed by one fromunit 1, the two bobbins are collected by the device 74 in the desiredsequence. Provided the speed of travel of the conveyor is high enough,but not so high as to cause a jam at the collecting device 74, the timewasted in waiting for the bobbin selected from unit 48 to move past unit1 will not be such as to negate the other advantages'which accrue fromthe present invention.

On the other hand, instructions may be fed to the fortyeight units bymeans of a record, for example, a. punched tape or card or by a magnetictape or by a tape which will control the incidence of light on alight-sensitive device. Such punched tapes having the necessary patterninformation thereon in a predetermined code or multiunit code would beused to actuate the aforesaid units to dispense or release the desiredbobbin and subsequent bobbins in predetermined order. In lieu of .apunched tape, magnetic tapes and associated magnetic readers or lightsensitive control units may be utilized to actuate the subsequentrelease of the bobbins from storage and control also if desired theconveying means to carry the bobbinsjto the spindle loading station.Magnetic tapes whose control characteristics can be changed by writingthe necessary controlling information thereon and thus changing thestate of the magnetic layer on the tape present a relatively simple wayto transfer the control information to the aforementioned readers.However, if instructions are so fed to the forty-eight units, there mustbe provided in each of the units 1 to 47 means whereby the instructionis noted, stored and only efliected after a predetermined time delay.Thus, the maximum time delay will be built into the release mechanism ofunit 1 since unit 1 may be instructed to release an elemental bobbin 66which must follow the bobbinreleased by unit 48 in accordance with thatinstruction which preceded the instruction given to unit 1. The timedelays built into the other release mechanisms of units 2 to 47 willbecome progressively less. It is contemplated to selected ele. mentalbobbins and to feed selected bobbins to the spoolforming station at therate of one per second and, there fore, assuming that there are sevenendsto the inch of a 27" wide repeat, it will (at leastin theory) bepossible to set one spool in just over 3 minutes.

The endless belt 60 will move at the same speed as the record andfurther the belt 60 and the record will be moved intermittently. Thisintermittent motion of the belt 69 is desirable but is not essential forthe reason that it is considered that it will be more easy to controlthe disposition of a bobbin which has been allowed to drop from one ofthe units 1 to 48 on to the belt. It will be appreciated that a fairlylight elemental bobbin dropping on to a belt 60 which is movingcontinually would probably be inclined to slip initially on the belt andwould probably be inclined to rotate about its own axis before coming torest on the belt.

Therefore, the object of driving the belt 60 intermittently and stoppingit whenever a bobbin has to be dropped from one of the units 1 to 48 isto ensure, as far as possible, that the bobbin will land on the belt 60with the free end of the yarn thereof located in exactly the sameposition (or approximately so) as the free ends of the yarn of all theother bobbins which have previously been dropped on to the belt 60. Asall the bobbins are collected by the collection device 74, it willobviously be of advantage for the bobbin to become located on that oneof the shafts 75, 76, 77 and 78 which is being filled to make a spool insuch a manner that all the free ends are located in exactly the sameangular position with respect to the axis of said shaft because allthese free ends have to be inserted into a tube frame at a later stagein the process of spool-setting.

Referring to FIGURE 7, there is illustrated an elemental bobbin 100which has been wound on a former 161 on a precision winding machine. Asmentioned earlier in the specification this elemental bobbin ispreferably but by no means exclusively of the order of 3 diameter andhas an axial width W of approximately V of an inch. The bore of theformer 80 may be, for example, of 1" diameter. It is not essential forthe elemental bobbin to be wound on a former but (apart from thematerial employed in making the former when a former is used) the soleconstituent of the elemental bobbin is the yarn itself.

Reviewing now some of the advantages of the methods of spool-settingaccording to the present invention as compared with the system or methodnow in common use, firstly, it is now common practice to wind off, forexample, six spools after each check of the yarn colour sequence againstthe pattern colour sequence to set a new spool. This is because thesetting up process is laborious and time-wasting and because it is feltthat it is better to wind off a number of spools each having aparticular yarn colour sequence thereon than to wind off too few spoolsonly to find in a relatively short time (because that particularAxminster carpet sells well) that further spools are required which willnecessitate again going through the whole procedure of setting-up thecreel and spool-setting. However, the advantage (if any) gained bywinding off six spools is counter-acted by the fact that the yarn woundon the six spools for each line of a repeat of an Axminster carpetrepresents an enormous number of feet of made up Axminster carpet,bearing in mind that a normal repeat consists of between 150 and 300lines. Having wound oil, for example, six spools for each line of therepeat of a particular Axminster design there is the problem of storageof those spools which are not required for immediate use and in somecases it is three months or even longer before these spools will be usedup. This storage problem, therefore, seriously limits the range ofAxminster designs which a carpet manufacturer can offer. Further, thepresent system is uneconomic and wasteful because it ties up capital inthe form of yarn and in the form of an unnecessarily great number ofspools.

With the methods of spool-setting according to the present invention itis possible, with far less waste of time, to set up a single set ofspools for a repeat of an Axminster design. The conventional spool atpresent employed has, say, from 32-35 feet of yarn wound on it whereasthe elemental bobbins each contain about 56 feet of yarn, when theseelemental bobbins are of 3" diameter. It will, therefore, be seen that,with the conventional method of spool-setting, about 200 feet of yarn isappropriated with a set of six spools in a form which is useless for anyother purpose than formaking one particular design of Axminster carpet,whereas with the present invention only 56 feet of yarn are soappropriated. When one multiples the number of feet of yarn stored onsaid set of six spools by the number of lines for a normal repeat, theadvantage afforded by the present invention from this aspect alone willbe seen to be very great.

From another aspect, it will be possible to accumulate a library ofrecords (for example, magnetic tapes) which can be stored together witha chart indicating which units of the units 1 to 48 (FIGURES 4, 5 and 6)are to wind and dispense elemental bobbins containing yarn of thevarious colours to be employed in that particular Axminster carpetdesign. Once the installation has been thus set up, it will be possibleby passing the tape through a reading device to set the number of spoolsrequired to complete the particular order received. Even if it is foundthat a certain quantity of yarn on each spool is unused, the storageproblem is far less than that created by having a greater number thantwo sets of spools to be stored.

A greater selection of Axminster designs can be offered to customers byemploying the methods of spool-setting according to the presentinvention because, once the record library has been established, therewill be less time spent in spool-setting. At the present time, only alimited range of Axminster designs is, in practice, offered for thereason that it takes so long for one pair of operatives to set therequired number of spools to make the repeat of any design and for thereason (mentioned above) that the carpet manufacturer has a certainamount of floor space which can be devoted to spool storage and no more.

Again, a carpet manufacturer might form the conclusion that a newAxminster design will prove very popular and might wind a larger thanusual number of sets of spools. If the design were to prove unpopular,the manufacturers error of judgment will, withconventional spoolsetting,cost him a lot of money. With any of the methods according to thepresent invention, the financial risk is very greatly reduced because,initially, only one set of spools will be set.

We have also found that winding yarn in the form of elemental bobbins onprecision winding machines enables the yarn to be wound with a moreuniform winding tension applied thereto, and this, in turn, means thatwaste is reduced.

Having thus described my invention, what is claimed and desired to besecured by Letters Patent is:

1. A method of loom spool-setting which includes the steps ofcontrolling by means of a record the operation of selection mechanismwhich is operable to select at least one elemental bobbin from aplurality of such bobbins, each selected bobbin containing thread ofonly one color, selecting a plurality of such bobbins by repeatedoperation of said selection mechanism under the control of said record,and assembling said plurality of selected elemental bobbins in a coloursequence which is predetermined by said record in order to form a spool.

2. A method of loom spool-setting which includes the steps of utilizingthe colour sequence in a horizontal line of a pattern and operating aselection mechanism to eifect the selection from a plurality ofelemental bobbins of at least one bobbin, each selected bobbincontaining thread of only one color, said colored thread to be employedin a carpet row corresponding to a position in said pattern line,repeating the operation of said selection mechanism a predeterminednumber of times to select a plurality of bobbins in a colour sequenceidentical with that in said pattern line and assembling said bobbins inorder to form a spool.

3. A method of loom spool-setting which includes the selection by aselection mechanism of an elemental bobbin having one color yarn thereoffrom a plurality of elemental bobbins, the feeding by feeding mechanismof a selected bobbin to an assembly location, and assembling a pluralityof selected bobbins, each selected bobbin cont-aining threads of onlyone color, side by side in order to form a spool.

4. A method of loom spool-setting which includes the steps of utilizingthe colour sequence in a horizontal line of a pattern, preparing arecord of instruction data in accordance with said colour sequenceadapted to control the operation seriatim of selection mechanism,passing said record through a reading device operable to convert an itemof said recorded instruction data into positive instructions to one ofsaid selection mechanisms to select at least one elemental bobbincontaining thread of a particular colour from a plurality of suchbobbins, selecting in accordance with said colour sequence a pluralityof such bobbins by repeated operation of said selection mechanisms underthe control of said record, and assembling said plurality of selectedbobbins in accordance with said colour sequence in order to form aspool.

5. A method as claimed in claim 4, including preparing the record ofinstruction data by perforating a medium in accordance With apredetermined multi-unit code.

6. A method as claimed in claim 4, including preparing the record ofinstruction data by perforating a medium in accordance Withpredetermined code.

7. A method as claimed in claim 4, including preparing the record ofinstruction data by changing the magnetic state of a magnetic layerthereon.

8. A method as claimed in claim 4, including preparing the record ofinstruction data by making a medium which Will control the incidence oflight on a light-sensitiv device.

9. A method of loom spool setting Which comprises Winding a plurality ofelemental bobbins each With a single color thread, storing the bobbinsaccording to color, automatically selecting by selecting means a singlebobbin of a desired color from the storage supply in accordance With apattern, delivering sequentially-selected bobbins of desired colors insequence to an assembly station and assembling the bobbins in axialrelationship in accordance With the pattern to form a set spool.

10. The method according to claim 9 including automatically deliveringthe individual Wound elemental bobbins to the storage means as they areformed and assembling the Wound bobbins according to individual color.

11. The method according to claim 9 including con trolling the selectionof the individual bobbins from the storage means according to the colorsequence of the pattern.

12. A method of spool setting which comprises winding a plurality ofelemental bobbins from a supply of a single color yarn, delivering eachbobbin as it is Wound to a supply station, assembling each color bobbinat the storage station according to its particular color, controlling bymeans of a record the selection by selecting means from storage of eachelemental bobbin containing only a single color yarn in accordance Withthe record color sequence, delivering each bobbin in the proper sequenceto an assembling station and assembling the bobbins one on an other toproduce the desired color yarn sequence in the set spool, maintainingthe elemental bobbins in assembled relationship and removing the setspool to a storage station.

13. The method according to claim 12 including delivering the set spoolfrom the storage station to the loom and feeding the yarn ends from theset spool to the loom to produce an Axminster rug.

14. A method of loom spool setting which comprises selectingsequentially by selecting means each of a plurality of single color yarncarrying elemental bobbins from a supply station containing a pluralityof such bobbins in color segregated relationship, controlling theselection of each bobbin by a pattern record containing the desiredcolor sequence to be set, delivering the bobbin to an assembly station,repeating the selection and delivery of each color bobbin in accordancewith the pattern, assembling the bobbins in axial relationship andmaintaining the assembled bobbins in assembled color sequence to form aset loom spool.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,478,082 12/23Whitlock 28-725 2,952,891 9/60 Robinson 28-725 3,059,310 10/62 Greenleafet al. 2855.5

DONALD W. PARKER, Primary Examiner.

RUSSELL C. MADER, Examiner.

3. A METHOD OF LOOM SPOOL-SETTING WHICH INCLUDES THE SELECTION BY A SELECTION MECHANISM OF AN ELEMENTAL BOBBIN HAVING ONE COLOR YARN THEREOF FROM A PLURALITY OF ELEMENTAL BOBBINS, THE FEEDING BY FEEDING MECHANISM OF A SELECTED BOBBIN TO AN ASSEMBLY LOCATION, AND ASSEMBLING 